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CHAPTER EIGHT Evangelism and Social Work The years after Eby's withdrawal from Japan in the mid-lS90s saw enormous changes take place in Japanese society, but Canadian missionaries were slow to adapt their evangelistic work to the changing circumstances. This was partly a result of a sense of security in their own position; Canadian missionaries in Japan rarely felt the need to justify their presence. Although some missionaries inJapan speculated on the methods and philosophy of missionary work, there was little systematic discussion of these topics in the missionary community. Missionaries were generally concerned more with pointing out the difficulties confronting Christianity in Japan than with the problem of what they should do to overcome them, perhaps because of the simple but constant need to give their home constituency a reason why they were unable to convert more people. After the turn of the century, however, Canadian missionaries and especially women missionaries became increasingly involved in social work among the less fortunate in society. The growing concern with social work had as one of its sources of inspiration the theology of the Social Gospel, which was becoming a powerful influence within the church in Canada. Conveniently, social work also provided the missionary in Japan with a new role, for the missionary was being supplanted by Japanese pastors in parish work. Few missionaries had the oratorical skills in Japanese to be able to rival a well-known Japanese evangelist preacher in open public meetings . Direct evangelistic work sometimes involved preaching every night to non-Christians in open gospel halls in large cities, or three or four nights of consecutive preaching at an individual church, or even tent and street preaching. In order to attract crowds, there was a demand for famous speakers to perform at evangelistic meetings. The great evangelists of Japan, such as Paul Kanamori (Kanamori Notes for Chapter Eight are found on pp. 239-42. 147 148 THE CROSS AND THE RISING SUN Michitomo) or Uemura Masahisa, never lacked an audience, but very few missionaries could attract large Japanese audiences. It is not surprising that few missionaries displayed much enthusiasm for this very public sort of work; after all, they had to maintain their appearance as respectable members of the community. As was so often the case, it tended to be the women mis..:ionaries (less concerned with maintaining appearances) who were the most evangelistic, though there were some able male evangelistic missionaries among the Canadians inJapan. But evangelistic missionaries were a minority group. Unlike in Japan, where the setting was primarily urban, in Korea Canadian Presbyterian work was largely rural. Until the 1930s, the evangelistic missionary in Korea retained a strong affinity (albeit under the guise of scientific approach to evangelism known as the Nevius Methodl ) with the old circuit rider of early nineteenth-century Ontario. It might be claimed that this evangelistic method was successful , for in the first decade of the twentieth century in Korea a great many converts were made. There was a tremendous optimism among missionaries about the future of Christianity in Korea, an optimism that extended beyond 1910. In contrast, evangelistic work in Taiwan was more limited than it might have been because the colonial authorities prevented the missionaries from working among the aboriginal tribes who might have been easier to convert than the Chinese. Both in Taiwan and in Korea, in their evangelistic work missionaries had to contend with the fact of Japanese colonialism. In the early 1900s, Canadian missionaries began paying more attention to the main obstacles confronting the propagation of Christianity. The problems posed by traditional religions and Japanese nationalism were among the most frequent subjects of missionary comment. PROBLEMS AND OPPORTUNITIES Many missionaries considered Buddhism as a potential threat to Christian advance. In the 1870s, McDonald had complained about Buddhism in biting terms.2 In 1905, Arthur Lea, the Canadian Anglican missionary in Gifu (later the Bishop of the diocese of Kyiishii), saw Buddhism in a more reasoned light. In an article dealing with the difficulties of the Japanese accepting Christianity, he noted that the success ofBuddhism inJapan was the result ofits ability to co-exist with Shint6.3 He believed that Buddhism would ally itself with Christianity ifthe latter had an attitude ofcompromise rather than one ofconquest. However, Lea was too orthodox an Anglican to agree to compromise. C. P. Holmes, a Canadian Methodist missionary, looked for the emergence ofa more tolerant attitude toward Buddhism among Chris- [3.15.219.64] Project MUSE (2024-04-18 02...

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